Cognitive Therapy

Abstract

Cognitive therapy has been influenced by a variety of theories of psychopathology and the process of therapy. At the theoretical level, it has been primarily influenced by three sources: (1) the phenomenological approach to psychology, (2) structural theory and depth psychology, and (3) cognitive psychology. The “phenomenological” approach to psychology is rooted in Greek Stoic philosophy. It maintains that one’s view of self and one’s personal world largely determine behavior. This concept appears in Kant’s (1798) emphasis on conscious subjective experience and in the more contemporary writings of Adler (1936), Alexander (1950), Homey (1950), and Sullivan (1953).

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